Manuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: The impact of ownership structure on annual report disclosures and overall disclosure quality has received some attention in previous literature, but no study has examined it in the context of public announcements. This paper investigates the issue by using a disclosure score based on six disclosure quality attributes and by employing two quantitative disclosure measures in the context of three European emerging capital markets in the Baltics -the Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius Stock Exchanges. Research Findings/Results: In line with expectations, public announcement disclosure quality had a negative association with ownership concentration and foreign ownership and a positive association with institutional ownership. In terms of other company characteristics, sales growth and size of entry barriers exhibited positive associations with disclosure as expected. Unlike in previous research, statistically significant negative associations between size and announcement length were supported. This is due to the sample used, which included several firms from the Vilnius Stock Exchange with short announcements for the pre-2003 period. Theoretical Implications: This paper presents possibilities for employing information theory in the context of finance for determining possible disclosure quality attributes that could be used in the creation of a disclosure quality score. Practical Implications: Empirical tests reveal the importance of ownership structure in determining the disclosure choice of companies that, in turn, may provide information about the types of companies that need more effective regulative enforcement.

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Purpose This paper aims to determine the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting of listed banks and female representation on boards while controlling for the impact of gender quotas. Design/methodology/approach Logistic regressions are used with bank fixed effects on a global sample of 285 commercial banks from 2005 to 2017. Findings There exists a positive association between the proportion of women on board and banks’ CSR disclosure. Positive association remains also after quota corrections for banks with either below- or above-quota female representation. Further, adding more women to boards than required by quota could affect boards’ CSR reporting in masculine countries but not in feminine countries. Research limitations/implications The results are not generalizable to smaller listed banks and the used estimation approach does not enable to detect causality. Practical implications Policymakers interested in improving banks’ CSR reporting could introduce gender quotas. Social implications Gender quotas can enforce banks’ sustainable behaviour. Originality/value First, it is the first study to thoroughly control for gender quotas while investigating the association between female representation on boards and CSR disclosure. Second, this paper moves forward from the so-far predominant concentration on single-country studies on banks’ CSR reporting. Third, this paper covers the aspect of a country’s masculinity-femininity as a factor that could influence the association between CSR disclosure and female representation.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the 2008 financial crisis is reflected in the CSR disclosure quantity and readability of banks' headquarters and subsidiaries, and how banks' disclosure patterns differ across these units. Design/methodology/approach – Embedded multiple case study utilising quantitative content analysis and readability indices. Findings – As expected, Nordic banks' headquarters' disclosure quantity and readability outperforms those of their Baltic subsidiaries/branches. However, no convergence of intra-group CSR disclosure practices is detected. Banks' response to the legitimacy gap seems to depend on CSR reporting strategy: passive superficial (Baltic subsidiaries/branches, ABLV), passive thorough (Swedbank), intermediate (Danske Bank) and active (SEB). Passive and intermediate strategy pursuers' CSR disclosure quantity and readability remains stable during the financial crisis period. However, active strategy pursuers increase disclosure quantity and reduce readability indicating possible stakeholder manipulation attempts. Both intermediate and active strategy pursuers disclose in greater detail steps taken to improve CSR behaviour. Research limitations/implications – Results may not be transferable to the pre-2007 period, to other contexts and to Western European subsidiaries. Practical implications – Introduction of plain English into CSR communication could enable to decrease stakeholder manipulation attempts made through CSR texts. Originality/value – Previous studies have not investigated CSR disclosures of banks operating in the Baltic countries and globally have not focused on their readability, headquarter-subsidiary differences and 2008 financial crisis contexts.